There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding
citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993.
Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000
to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted
Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's
annually.

Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994
titled, the National Survey of Private Ownership of Firearms. Using a smaller sample size
than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually.

There is one study, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which the last time
it was conducted, estimated 108,000 DGU's annually. Why the huge discrepancy between this
survey and fourteen others?

Dr. Kleck's Answer

Why is the NCVS an unacceptable estimate of annual DGU's? Dr. Kleck states,
"Equally important, those who take the NCVS-based estimates seriously have
consistently ignored the most pronounced limitations of the NCVS for estimating DGU
frequency. The NCVS is a non-anonymous national survey conducted by a branch of the
federal government, the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Interviewers identify themselves to
respondents as federal government employees, even displaying, in face-to-face contacts, an
identification card with a badge. Respondents are told that the interviews are being
conducted on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice, the law enforcement branch of the
federal government. As a preliminary to asking questions about crime victimization
experiences, interviewers establish the address, telephone number, and full names of all
occupants, age twelve and over, in each household they contact. In short, it is made very
clear to respondents that they are, in effect, speaking to a law enforcement arm of the
federal government, whose employees know exactly who the respondents and their family
members are, where they live, and how they can be recontacted."

"It is not hard for gun-using victims interviewed in the NCVS to withhold
information about their use of a gun, especially since they are never directly asked
whether they used a gun for self-protection. They are asked only general questions
about whether they did anything to protect themselves. In short, respondents are merely
give the opportunity to volunteer the information that they have used a gun defensively.
All it takes for a respondents to conceal a DGU is to simply refrain from mentioning it,
i.e., to leave it out of what may be an otherwise accurate and complete account of the
crime incident."

"...88% of the violent crimes which respondents [Rs] reported to NCVS interviewers
in 1992 were committed away from the victim's home, i.e., in a location where it would
ordinarily be a crime for the victim to even possess a gun, never mind use it defensively.
Because the question about location is asked before the self-protection questions, the
typical violent crime victim R has already committed himself to having been victimized in
a public place before being asked what he or she did for self-protection. In short, Rs
usually could not mention their defensive use of a gun without, in effect, confessing to a
crime to a federal government employee."

Kleck concludes his criticism of the NCVS saying it "was not designed to estimate
how often people resist crime using a gun. It was designed primarily to estimate national
victimization levels; it incidentally happens to include a few self-protection questions
which include response categories covering resistance with a gun. Its survey instrument
has been carefully refined and evaluated over the years to do as good a job as possible in
getting people to report illegal things which other people have done to
them. This is the exact opposite of the task which faces anyone trying to get good DGU
estimates--to get people to admit controversial and possibly illegal things which the Rs
themselves have done. Therefore, it is neither surprising, nor a reflection on the
survey's designers, to note that the NCVS is singularly ill-suited for estimating the
prevalence or incidence of DGU. It is not credible to regard this survey as an acceptable
basis for establishing, in even the roughest way, how often Americans use guns for
self-protection."

The political climate surrounding guns is so intense that studies have been done of
studies that have been done about studies. Philip Cook, the director of Duke University's
public policy institute, has examined the data behind the 108,000 and the 2.5 million
figures and suspects the truth lies somewhere in between. "Many of the basic
statistics about guns are in wide disagreement with each other depending on which source
you go to," says Cook, a member of the apolitical National Consortium on Violence
Research. "That's been a real puzzle to people who are trying to understand what's
going on."